Norway forward Ada Hegerberg is widely regarded as being one of the best footballers in the world. The winner of the inaugural Ballon D’Or Feminin in 2018, Hegerberg has spent five years not playing for her national side, due to her concerns with the treatment of the women's team. Her recent return to the Norway national team means adds another level of excitement to the Women's Euro 2022.
Hegerberg has been a prolific goalscorer ever since she made her debut at 15 years old. She finished top scorer of the Toppserien, Norway’s top division, in her first season when she was just 16 years old. She soon moved to Turbine Potsdam where she scored 11 goals in 25 appearances in her single season in Germany, before being snapped up by Lyon.
Ada Hegerberg: Onwards and upwards at Lyon
It was at Lyon that Hegerberg really announced herself to the world. In her first season at the club, she scored 26 goals in 22 league games and basically has not stopped scoring since. She won the first ever Ballon D’Or for women in 2018 having been essential to a Lyon team who had collected all but one trophy available to them since she had arrived at the club. Her crowning individual achievement came in the 2019 Champions League final where she scored a hat trick in only 16 minutes as Lyon brushed Barcelona aside, winning 4-1. Later that year she became the Champions League’s all-time top scorer, having hit 53 goals in only 50 appearances in the competition.
Whilst her club form soared though, she was no longer playing for Norway. Hegerberg had been an essential part of the squad since Euro 2013 where she played all 90 minutes of the final despite only having just turned 18. However, after Euro 2017, a disappointing tournament for Norway who did not win a single game and exited at the group stage, Ada Hegerberg announced she would no longer represent her country as a way of protesting the Norwegian federations treatment of the women’s side. She consequently missed the 2019 Women’s World Cup.
Unfortunately in January 2020, Ada Hegerberg sustained an anterior cruciate ligament which would rule her out for the season. She ended up missing close to two years of football, but her return to the game has shown she has lost none of her sharpness. She helped Lyon make the final of the Champions League before scoring against Barcelona as the Lyonnaises ran out 3-1 winners in the battle of old vs new.
But even more excitingly, she revealed she had agreed to once again wear a Norwegian shirt. Following talks with the new president of the Norwegian federation, Lise Klaveness, Hegerberg returned to the fold. She celebrated her first game back in the only way she knows how - by scoring a hattrick in a 5-1 win against Kosovo.
Obviously included in Norway’s squad for the 2022 Euros, Hegerberg will now hope to be able to bring her country additional success on the European stage.
